100,000 Canadian Households Joined The Millionaire Club Last Year

There were 100,000 more millionaire households in Canada in 2016 than there were a year earlier, and the ranks of the wealthy are expected to continue surging, according to a report released this week.

The latest edition of Boston Consulting Group (BCG)’s wealth report also says Canada’s richest households control an ever-larger share of the country’s wealth.

It counted 485,000 millionaire households in Canada in 2016, up from 385,000 in 2015.

That jump was enough to push Canada to fifth place in the rankings of countries with the most millionaire households. A year earlier, Canada had been in eighth place. Only the U.S., China, Japan and Britain have more.

But it’s not rising house prices that are responsible for this — the BCG report excludes primary residences from its wealth calculations.

And while millionaire migration to Canada is playing a role, BCG attributes most of the increase to “the rise of Canadian equities in 2016.” In other words, soaring stock markets turned many near-millionaire households into actual millionaire households.

And many more are on the way, according to the report. It predicts that the number of millionaire households will rise to 785,000 by 2021.

Wealth increasingly concentrated among the rich

Today, 3.5 per cent of Canadian households are in the millionaire club, and they control 32.5 per cent of the country’s wealth. By 2021, BCG predicts millionaire households will make up 5.5 per cent of all households, and they will control 38 per cent of the country’s wealth.

Though this phenomenon is particularly pronounced in Canada, it’s happening to some degree around the world. The world’s millionaires now control a record 45 per cent of the world’s wealth, BCG said — though they account for only about one per cent of the world’s population.

By 2021, they will control 51 per cent of the world’s wealth, the report forecast.

Worldwide, there were 17.9 million millionaire households in 2016, up eight per cent from the year before, the study found.

The U.S. continues to lead the world in millionaire households, with 7.1 million. China is in second place, with 2.1 million.